The goal of Iowa ARES® Winlink Weekend is learning and practicing the use of the Winlink system to prepare for its use with the agencies we intend to serve, as well as supporting ARES® itself. Everyone is invited to participate!

We will be practicing the various message forms we can expect to be asked to use.

Messages are to be sent any time on Saturday or Sunday, Central Time.

Specifics for Check-in weeks:
Use the basic Winlink Check In template which is in Standard Templates, in both GENERAL and MAPPING-GIS forms.
Enter WINLINK WEEKEND, using the Setup button.
In Comments: call sign, first name, city or town, county, state, mode (Winlink HF, VARA FM, VHF packet, etc.)
Example: WB0GAG, Bruce, Muscatine, Muscatine, IA, VARA HF
Fill in the remaining entries as you wish, but make your location data accurate "enough".
You can save your data for reuse with the Save Check In Data button.
If you don't want to include your own phone number, use (any area code)-555-0121, which is not in use anywhere in North America.
Click the Submit button and follow the prompts.
Send any time Saturday or Sunday, preferably by radio (RMS), although you can use Telnet if you are just starting or can't get a radio connection.
Eastern Iowa and Illinois are on 145.610 MHz, packet Winlink. We are working to extend deeper into Iowa.
Send to WB0GAG. Check the exercise scenario for any additional addresses.
Peer to Peer (P2P) volunteers are welcome and don't need to be available for the whole time. Notify WBØGAG of the hours, band and mode you want so it can be added to the web site.

October 4-5, 2025

EXERCISE, EXERCISE

This weekend we will exlore the POTA, SiOTA, SOTA and WWFF spot report.
This promises to be a valuable tool for xOTA activations with no internet.

Start a new message and select Standard Templates > GENERAL Forms > Specialized forms Off-Grid Spotting & Hunting > Off-Grid Spotting & Hunting.txt.
Click View Spots.
Select Pipe Delimited "|".
Click Submit.
In the message composition window, make sure "Send As:" is set to Winlink Message.
Click Post to Outbox.
Select Telnet Winlink and click Open Session.
When "Ready" is displayed, click Start.

Wait a minute or so., then click Start again.

Click Download Selected Messages.
View //WL2K - POTA Spots and copy from Activator through the last UTC to your clipboard.
Open your spreadsheet program and paste what you copied into the top left cell, ensure that pipe (|) is the Separator Option, then click OK. Your spreadsheet should show the current POTA spots. If not, you may hsve to save the text as a .csv file and open that.
Copy the first 2 rows of the spreadsheet (or the first 2 rows of the text in the message) to your clipboard (Activator through the first UTC). Start a new message and select Standard Templates > GENERAL Forms > Winlink Check-in.
Fill out the form as usual.

In COMMENTS:, paste the text you just copied and as a new line, enter your
call sign, first name, city or town, county, state, mode (Winlink HF, VARA FM, VHF packet, etc.)
2 letter state abbreviation and no parentheses, please.
Example:
Activator Park # Location Frequency Mode Grid Last Spotted
WN7JT US-3261 US-WA 144025 CW CN87ur 5 mins ago at 1:31 AM UTC
WB0GAG, Bruce, Muscatine, Muscatine, IA, VARA HF

Save a copy for later if you wish, review your message, then click Submit and set "Subject:" to "Iowa Winlink Weekend".

RMS submission

In the message composition window, make sure "Send As:" is set to Winlink Message.
Check "Request message receipt" if you wish a confirmation message.
Set "To:" to WB0GAG. Add any others you would like to receive the message.
Set "Subject:" to Iowa Winlink Weekend.

When you are satisfied with the message, click "Post to Outbox".
Select the appropriate session type and proceed as normal.

Peer to Peer (P2P) submission

In the message composition window, make sure "Send As:" is set to Peer-to-Peer Message.

VARA HF P2P – N7BBI
Day	Time (CT)	Dial Frequency	Width
Saturday	0900-1300	14,077 KHz USB	500 Hz

VARA FM P2P or VHF Packet P2P – N7BBI*
Day	Time (CT)	Dial Frequency	Location
Saturday	0900-1300	145.61 MHz	Davenport
*To connect to N7BBI P2P on VHF, you must do so via the N7BBI-4 digipeater. The message then is routed to N7BBI as, “TO: N7BBI via N7BBI-4”. If you cannot reach N7BBI-4 digipeater directly, the following Gateways with their corresponding digipeaters, can be used to relay your P2P message to N7BBI-4: N0MRZ-4, NS0A-4, K9KQA-4, K0OCM-4 and W9XG-1 (Packet only). So, for example: TO: N7BBI via K0OCM-4, N7BBI-4. In the connection window, be sure to select digipeater as shown: (click the image to see it full size) To view the area gateways, click here.